09:55am CET (08:55 UK time)  ~  An unusually late start for me today after an extremely busy night out so I can see a relaxing day at home mainly doing emails and a bit of chart watching.

As a general rule U.S. and European markets move broadly together albeit with some lag occasionally but recently we’ve seen German and French indices power upwards while the American ones have suffered from persistent rumours of a rate rise sooner than later.  The Dow Jones 30 and S&P 500 had another negative day yesterday although the drop was less dramatic than recent sessions and there is a sense of bargain hunting in this morning’s futures market after Asian markets has a generally positive session overnight after South Korea cut their benchmark lending rate and encouraging wage increases in Japan points towards an optimistic economic outlook.  The rises in Europe are partly due to the decision that the European Central Bank is purchasing negative yielding bonds but this bullish mood maybe short lived as there are still hidden problems in the EU banking sector together with the Greek elephant in the room.

Crude oil values suffered during yesterday’s session due to two significant pieces of news – firstly the weekly crude inventories from Cushing showed a rise of 4.5 million barrels bringing the total U.S. stock to nearly 449 million barrels which is the highest since mid 1982 and secondly the energy minister from Oman has speculated that the overall global oil market is over supplied by more than a million barrels a day.

Market Close Wednesday 11th March 2015:   Dow Jones 30  -27.55 @ 17,635.99  S&P 500  -3.92 @ 2,040.24  NASDAQ  -23.70 @ 4,305.38  FTSE 100  +18.67 @ 6,721.51  UK AIM  -0.04 @ 711.59  DAX 30  +305.61 @ 11,805.99  CAC 40  +115.80 @ 4,997.75  IBEX  +115.80 @ 11,021.80   Nikkei 225 (Today)  +267.59 @ 18,991.11  Hang Seng (currently)  +97.41 @ 23,815.38

All times below are CET (UK + 1hr)

10:15am  ~  Going off for a cycle ride to clear the cobwebs…

16:30pm  ~  No trades to report as I’ve been outside with the builders since I returned from my bike ride – try again tomorrow !